the game is on again a lover or a friend
by TalkingToTulips
Summary: She's curious about him. She's always been able to read everyone, but he's a white blank page. Empty, a blank canvas waiting to be filled. She needed to know more. He's infuriated by her. He can't have a blind spot, even if it is one little blonde assassin. An attractive little blonde assassin but one he can't deduce. Moriarty x Moriarty


**I needed to write some Moriarty x Moriarty and this came forth from my muse. It's a ship I want to sail and will ship until I die. **

**Jamie and Jim Moriarty from the beginning of their relationship through all seasons of Sherlock up to His Last Vow with some plots stolen from Elementary. Minor mentions of Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock) and John Watson. Mostly told from Jamie's POV. **

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><p><em>the game is on again,<br>a lover or a friend,  
>a big thing or a small,<br>the winner takes it all_

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><p>When they meet in the crossfires of each other's latest schemes, neither of them can figure the other out. They should pull the trigger and eliminate the witness to their crimes, but neither of them can bring themselves to it as they stand over the bodies of the businessmen they'd taken out. A late night conference between two drugs conglomerates; Jamie had wanted to take down the crime family that ran one and Jim wanted to force the other into liquidation. There was an awful lot of blood.<p>

She's curious about him. She's always been able to read everyone, but he's a white blank page. Empty, a blank canvas waiting to be filled. She needed to know more.

He's infuriated by her. He can't have a blind spot, even if it is one little blonde assassin. An attractive little blonde assassin but one he can't deduce.

And it's for that reason and that reason that they let the other live.

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><p>When they meet again at a fancy gala, they know it's something akin to destiny. Not that either of them believe in such a construct. Jamie is on the arm of some politician she's trying to gain Intel on so she can blackmail him and Jim is playing the role of charitable businessman, his front. The string quartet offered interesting background music to their lingering glares over champagne glasses, still unable to figure each other out.<p>

Eventually Jim stalked towards the blonde, in her Dior ball gown, and made his excuses to the politician drooling all over her before pulling her onto the dance floor. She's taken by surprise, not a common occurrence as he placed his hand on her waist and they began to dance to the symphony in the air. "I couldn't watch that idiot pawing you another second." He explained as his only explanation when she gave him a look of curious questioning.

"That idiot owns half of Greater London." She replied, putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Planning to put a bullet in his brain too, my sweet?" He chuckled. She scowled.

"I surely can't be that plain and predictable. A politician as high-rise as him, people will ask questions, inquiries will be made. If he were dead, then his power would go to the next elected. No, no. I have far more…discreet planned for him. Control him and London will be mine." She insisted, not daring to give away anything else as she cast a glance at her new target that's sharing a brandy with the foreign minister.

Her eyes turned back to the man in front of her and part of her knew that they were on opposing sides, enemies but she can't help but think she's in the company of someone like her for the first time in forever. That she can reveal her schemes and let him admire and dissect them. "You seem to keep popping up." She told him curiously as they danced.

"That's my game." He assured her. "Is it yours?"

"I have many games." She told him.

Jamie doesn't return to her date's side that night, instead Jim pressed her into the shower wall of the penthouse he had rented in the hotel the gala was being held and made her crumble like an old stone wall and shatter like glass. She wore his fingertips like an alpha male marking his territory and he wore her nail's indentation in his skin like a badge of honour. They both know that they will never find anyone so like the other and treasure the knowledge that they aren't alone on this earth of sheep and wolves. They aren't wolves though and they certainly aren't sheep, they are the lions.

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><p>After that, Jamie woke in his arms every morning and if there were such thing as love, this is when she would feel it most. She knew that he loved her or what they considered to be love. Love for their kind. Neither of them wants to admit that they don't understand the concept that made people throw themselves off cliff if taken away but feel lighter than air when provided and nurtured by it.<p>

They have an apartment but only they know where it is. It's a bizarre, tiny little thing in the middle of Surrey with barely enough room for her art supplies and his suits. They both keep up their own apartments and persona, knowing the world wasn't ready for their merged crime empire as they like to call it secretly amongst bed sheets but they've been working on it and for each other for some time.

One day he turned to her whilst she's painting the view from their window, holding her easel close to her shoulder as she concentrated. He's been fiddling with his phone, organising another kidnap and ransom during his downtime. It's been a slow week for the pair of them. "You should change your name to Moriarty." He decided with finality.

She'd never told him her maiden name, she's always been just Jaime to him like he's always been just Jim to her. This apartment was where they were themselves, not even their business, unforgiving selves. They were by no means any more emotional or human but they enjoyed the reprieve and company as they tried to deduce each other. In bed, she called Moriarty more than once. She saw two men where most only ever saw the suit and the prince of crime.

"And why is that?" She asked, stroking the brush against the easel tenderly as she spoke.

"Moriarty is a word that can strike fear into any police officer, detective, politician or business in the world. It would certainly open doors for you. Besides, if we really are one and the same, then let them think we are the same." He told her. Jim always liked to remind her that he's been in the game longer than she has, he's her mentor as well as her lover but he also steps back and lets her experiment, break new boundaries, and make new contacts. She knew that it was because one day he would leave her and he wanted her to be able to continue her work without him.

"Is this your long winded way of asking me to marry you?" Jamie asked, meaning it as a joke.

"Maybe it is."

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><p>"What's this?" She found him looking at a blog post a few weeks later, a woman now bearing his name. She wondered whether it was his way of marking what was his, but she liked the power of the name Moriarty too much to care. She looked over his shoulders and snaked her arms around his shoulders as she read the blog title. "John H. Watson. Isn't that the detective's assistant? What was his name?" She read aloud, trying to remember the name from the papers.<p>

"Sherlock Holmes." Jim replied, turning his head to look at her. "He's remarkable. As remarkable as myself; as remarkable as you, my sweet." He spoke with a tone of obsession and wickedness. And like that, Jamie knew that her days with him were numbered. She swallowed thickly, tried not feel emotions rising up and let him kiss the back of her hand before he returned to his research.

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><p>She began to work on her US based crimes with more passion, wanting to establish herself as a presence there so she can flee in the event that her husband's plots against Sherlock end badly. His visits to their apartment become more sporadic and she's left reading the paper and painting, wondering when she became so pathetic. She let herself become enticed by a man she couldn't tame, couldn't understand and now she was surprised that he turned on her and bit her, leaving her for a new plaything.<p>

Jamie hated Sherlock Holmes. Before him, they were the only two of their kind. Jim could not conquer her, so now he wanted to conquer him. He will, and he will return to her side when he does, a little part of her brain assured her but the logic drowned it out.

When she woke to the news that Moriarty has been brought into custody, pending trial, she panicked. If he spoke one syllable of his crimes, both of their networks would unravel. Jamie left a trail that only he could follow when he's released, which she knew that he would be and took the next plane to New York. When she was sick in the airport bathroom, she put it down to nerves about her husband's incarceration but nobody would come looking for them, their marriage wasn't a legal thing; it was in their minds only.

She learned that she was pregnant the same day that she learned that Sherlock Holmes had thrown himself off a building and Richard Brooks is dead.

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><p>Jamie is glad that she changed her name, it gives her power even in America; people remember Jim Moriarty. She never let anyone see that she was a woman, and they assume that they are dealing with the suited mastermind who's been dead for months. Even though the public believe him a façade, those who matter know the truth and know that nobody with the name Moriarty is not to be trifled with.<p>

She carried her daughter to term and gave her away to a wealthy family that would care for her in the way that she could not. She was too cold and unemotional for motherhood, but not so heartless to abort the child of the man she once loved.

Not that she ever believed or understood love.

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><p>When Sherlock returned from the dead, she wanted to destroy him. She wanted him dead alive and she wanted to burn the corpse to make sure that he didn't return this time. She felt cheated by the non-existent higher power that John H. Watson got back his partner and she continued to walk the earth alone without her equal, her lover and her mentor. Jamie wanted to crush Sherlock under her thumb, but if Jim couldn't kill him, that Sherlock Holmes must be one bug that cannot be squashed. One of their kind.<p>

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><p>She returned to London a week after Charles Magnussen is killed, determined to pick up the pieces and gained some of the spoils. Her rented apartment is comfortable enough, but she found herself returning to their little flat in Surrey. She had kept it ready and rented for the two years since his death, even though she had rarely been in England since Sherlock Holmes had came through and totalled whatever life she might have had with him. It would have never been a regular life, but it was perfect for two of their kind. She found the mourning process a strange one, but mostly because a part of her knew that there was nothing to mourn.<p>

Jamie decided to retire from her business in the Surrey apartment and popped the key she'd hidden in a safe deposit box for all these years through the lock. She shed her jacket and heels, pulling out her pins and turning to the canvas that she'd left unfinished before leaving for New York. She nearly screamed out at the new addition to her painting.

Spray painted over the sunny view of the Thames River is the two words, and just like the game is on again.

_Miss me?_


End file.
